Keith Simanton's Top 30 Movies of the Last 20 Years

Eastwood, Freeman, Hackman and Harris in what is amazingly an homage and a biting commentary on all the Westerns before it. The bar was consequently set so high for future filmmakers that it seemed a fool's errand to even approach the genre itself...so few have until Andrew Dominik (see #10).

Possibly the best dialogue in a script ever.

Bryan Singer's direction of an incredible cast from an Oscar-winning script by Chris McQuarrie. Nary a waste of a frame in the entire thing.

The Wachowski's did the impossible by making a compelling film out of the "virtual reality" sub-genre while embracing every movie trope from the dawn of cinema. Plus it kicks a lot of ass.

Robert Redford's treatment of a Paul Attanasio screenplay, based upon the quiz show scandal of the '50s is a insightful glimpse into the heady attraction to fame and wealth and the costs associated with pursuing it.

Based upon Germanic lore and literature, particularly the legend of the Erl King, a creature that steals children away, this film literally made me gasp when I realized where it was going. This, not The Tin Drum, is Volker Schlondorff's masterpiece.

A gentle thriller about the rare decency of men it well deserved its Best Foreign Film Oscar.

It's perfect. Humorous, thrilling, touching, rich and meaningful. Brad Bird's perfectionist stamp is on every scene.

The underdog in all of us squirms through Alexander Paynes' film as we watch Matthew Broderick act as the agent of his own destruction. And it's funny to boot.

Andrew Dominick's dissection of fame and power and of the kinds of personalities that so desperately seek it, namely the powerless and the unloved. Worth it for the first scene with James stopping a train alone.

Achingly painful to watch yet redemptive Spielberg's movie is about the Holocaust but it's also about the unexpected appearance of good.

A slick and assured Will Smith plays a hustler who breaks an art dealer and his socialite wife out of their rote existence. Stockard Channing is all kinds of wonderful.

Crazed, made-up, brilliant, impassioned. Stone at his second-best (Platoon was outside of our 20 years) but still a Thomas Paine (for good and for ill) railing on the screen.

The culmination of the Ashman/Menken relationship with the revitalized Disney corporation and artists that rekindled, well, almost everything having to do with animation for the last two decades. Rich and lush and heartfelt.

A comedy in the vein of It's a Wonderful Life, without knowing it. Too smart, too effortless to be mere happenstance.

A modern-day fable that does what the best films can do. It leads us to a place that completely surprises us yet, at the same time, we knew it was heading there all along.

Watching this film makes one get a sliver of glimpse into the view God must have of our broken, limping lives. A dog fighter, a self-absorbed model and an assassin turn out to be no better and no worse than any of the rest of us as Inarritu's film converges on a traffic accident that will affect them all.

If you know someone who doesn't like it, lightly stomp on their toes.

What do we want of our protectors? We want them to do horrible things and then to sit down and shut up so we don't have to know about it. Cronenberg's masterpiece.

Gilliam wants to save the world and he wants to release a toxin that will destroy it. Based upon the short by Chris Marker, Le Jetee and showing that Bruce Willis is a great actor, as is Brad Pitt.

So dense you lose your place trying to recollect it, like Kane or the Godfather or Jackie Brown.

The same drive that causes people to make lists, to rearrange their stacks, to show their erudition, to show off, is explored in Frear's great film. Love, however, ends up being something that can't be quantified and shelved easily, which is a problem. Makes fun of Stevie Wonder (remember Jack Black's character telling off the father that thinks his daughter wants "I Just Called to Say I Love You?") and yet ends the film on a Wonder tune.

Ridley Scott's film transforms a road trip movie into a film about deep and abiding companionship with two incredible performances by Sarandon and Davis.

Clooney's direction pulls in the unbelievable and the pathetic in this tale of Chuck Barry, who may or may not be completely off his rocker.

Sean Penn's take on wanderlust and the need to be your own person with an overlooked, excellent performance by Emil Hirsch.

"Adios Red Rock," is a quote that should be so well known that it's on Jeopardy! John Dahl's direction and Nic Cage and Dennis Hopper. You can almost taste the Miller Genuine Draft.

"Pop quiz hotshot."

A love triangle that includes a suicidal writer, a prostitute and alcohol. Nic Cage's performance deservedly won him an Oscar.

Tony Gilroy's tale of a lawyer who sees the effects of his own handiwork contains what may be George Clooney's best performance. A smart film that throws one back to the days of Sydney Pollack.

Kubrick dissects marriage and fidelity like a bulldozer with a razor-sharp scoop.